Carrot Crust

As many of you may know, I’m very active on Instagram posting pictures and following others who share my interests in food and photography. The other day I came across a beautiful and intriguing picture by Farmgirl Gourmet for a pie crust made of sweet potatoes. I was hooked!

However, as I was out of sweet potatoes and had a 5-kilo bag of carrots waiting for my attention, I swapped out the vegetables and then added a few touches of my own. I love the resulting texture and I’m going to be making more of this with other veggies…

1/2 teaspoon cardamom (optional, and I included it for the lamb bastila, for which I made the crust)

Process

Preheat the oven to 180C (about 350F). Prepare a springform cake tin as follows: butter the bottom and sides and line with parchment paper. The butter is used so the paper will adhere to the pan.

Add some olive oil (or additional, melted butter) on top of the paper and with your hands or a paper towel, spread the oil around the parchment paper. Set aside.

Peel about 6-8 large carrots. I used a hand grater to grate them. Then I squeezed the water (carrot juice) out of them and measured the “dried” results into 4 cups. (I used a dry ingredients U.S. measuring cup.)

Place the grated carrots in a large bowl. Add the butter and eggs, and with your hands mix well, cutting the butter into the mixture.

Add the coconut flour and spices, and knead until all is well blended.

Scoop the carrot mixture into the prepared cake tin and using your hands, spread it out evenly to form a pie shell (covering the sides of the tin as well as the bottom).

Baking time depends on what you will make with the crust afterwards. I baked mine for 35 minutes and then baked it again with the filling another 25 minutes.

*I squeezed the grated carrots between my hands, eliminating as much carrot juice as possible. (I had about 1/3 cup of juice, which was delicious on its own, after grating and squeezing 4 cups of grated carrots). You can also use a cheesecloth to squeeze the liquid out of the vegetables.

[…] For the carrot crust that I used with this pie, please click here. […]

KimmieMarch 26, 2013 - 19:31

This also seems like a good use of carrot pulp after juicing carrots. Do you think that would work for this crust as well?

thesaffrongirlMarch 26, 2013 - 19:55

Hi Kimmie, I’m guessing it would. I have no idea how the pulp consistency or texture looks like after juicing them, but if it’s similar to grated, it should work well. Let me know if you try it that way!

[…] 4. Carrot Crust Just like with the cauliflower crust, they’re using a vegetable as the base in this one. Here they’re also using coconut flour to make it taste right, but the carrots are going to give it the bulk you’d expect from a thick pizza dough. The orange color might throw you off, and you’ll want to be a fan of carrots to try this one, but since you’ve got your veggie covered in the crust you can pile on as much meaty topping as you want and still be following the guidelines of eating Paleo. Carrots of course have beta carotene, which is famous for helping with your eyesight and provides other benefits to your body as well. […]

I’m diabetic and I’m always looking for new recipes, and this one sounds delicious! My only question is, I want to try to make it for Passover and I’m not sure if coconut flour is acceptable; would almond flour work instead?

Thank you for posting these wonderful recipes and thank you in advance for any advice you give.

The Saffron GirlJanuary 22, 2014 - 15:17

Hi Anna,
I think almond flour could work, although I haven’t tried it and wouldn’t know exactly what measurement to suggest. However, almond flour is much more versatile than coconut, so there’s generally less of a problem in messing up the recipe. If you do give it a try, please let me know. And thank you for your sweet comments! It makes me very happy to have people use my recipes. Debra xx